Day 3

6/6/12 - Arco Iris School

Today’s clinic was a record breaker! It was held at a beautiful school for children with special needs located here in Urubamba.  Because a limited number of children attend the school, Dr. Morales sent out radio announcements to other local schools inviting their students and others from the community to come.  In total, we saw over 270 patients!!  An expanded triage was set up to send the children with medical concerns to the physicians’ stations, while those that were well were sent for eye exams, sanitation and dental hygiene education, dental fluoridation (first trial of this service for PHOP!) and other ancillary services.  For our second day out, everything functioned incredibly smoothly, and we were able to finish the day without turning anyone away (although we were all pretty exhausted afterward.)

I saw an incredible variety of cases today – there were numerous children with a cough or abdominal pain (probably due to parasites).  But I also got a chance to see more unusual cases, including a series of patients with Down’s Syndrome and heart murmurs, a case of central ataxia, and a case of domestic violence having caused injuries.  It’s one of the things I love about these clinics – you never know what could come up next.

The one thing we seem to be able to count on is that the people that surround us will be friendly, patient, and openly expressive of gratitude.  The children at today’s clinic made a special impression.  In particular, I remember one young girl from the Arco Iris School.  I had not even treated her, but she came up behind me during lunch and gave me a big hug, and when I turned to face her, she kissed me on the cheek.  Although our supplies, our time, and (especially in my case) our Spanish may be limited, the patients are so appreciative.  Experiences like this can’t help but make me feel like what we’re doing here is making a lasting impression on our patients, and on the members of the PHOP team.

Maurine Cobabe

CCLCM class of 2013

Pictures to be added soon, pending resolution of Internet connectivity issues!!